Thursday, December 3, 2015

Rethinking worship

When I was a Navy chaplain, I spent most of my time working
with people who did not participate in organized religion. Intriguingly, individuals
who considered themselves Christian but who did not attend church often asked
me, "Why should I attend worship?" If they were interested, I gave
them my answer to their question. Suspecting that those present for worship
services attended for various reasons, I occasionally addressed the question in
a sermon.

Now, reflecting on three decades of ministry, I realize that
my answer to that perennial question changed several times, morphing from a
simple we worship because God commands it, citing, e.g., the fourth commandment,
to Anglican pastoral vagueness of encouraging individuals to do what is
helpful, to offering a fresh perspective on worship.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the noun
"worship" as "the feeling or expression of reverence and
adoration for a deity." That definition coheres well with what I learned
about worship in seminary, traditional explanations of why Christians should
worship, and my answers to the question early in my ministry.

However, I now view that definition of worship as highly problematic.
A God who desires – if not demands – human adoration appears grotesquely
narcissistic. Such a god seems to be nothing more than a divinized celebrity
whose insatiable ego needs prompt ever-more outrageous behaviors to command
public attention.

Rethinking worship pushed me intellectually and spiritually
to recollect my goals as a priest. In seminary, I read H. Richard Niebuhr's The
Purpose of the Church and its Ministry. His cogent summary of that purpose
as the increase of the love of God and neighbor has consistently guided my
ministry.

How can (or should) worship increase our love of God and of
neighbor?

The answer to the second part of that question, increasing
our love for our neighbors, seems more self-evident than the answer to the
question's first part. In communal worship, neighbors – from near or far – gather.
Sharing the peace and receiving Holy Communion from broken bread and a common
cup are visible signs that we are God's family. These acts invite us to deepen
our relationships with one another. The readings, prayers, and often the sermon
emphasize loving one's neighbor. Even the use of the first person plural in
prayers and the Nicene Creed remind us that life is not an individual existence
but a communal journey.

Answering the first part of that question, how worship
increases love for God, required a significant shift in my thinking about
worship. Traditional teachings about worship tend to objectify God, even if
that is unintended. This can easily make God seem unreal, the impassive and
often unknown object of worshipers' adoration, praise, etc.

The shift in my thinking was actually subtle and occurred
over a number of years. Instead of telling people that they should worship
because God commanded it, I realized that I had begun suggesting that people
attend worship because it was often the only hour set aside each week in which
to think intentionally about God.

Then I started to consider how thinking about God and one's
relationship with God might be a catalyst for an increased love of God. My
thoughts kept returning to two verbs: connect and align.

When I love someone, I want to connect with that person. God
is omnipresent and wants to connect with me. The barriers to connecting with
God are all on my side of the relationship. These barriers may include a lack
of desire to connect with God, faults or personality traits believed to prevent
one from having a relationship with God, or a lack of attention to God.

Evangelism efforts, including some preaching, often presume
a lack of desire to connect with God. Evangelism has earned a deservedly bad reputation
for using egoism to try to motivate people to desire a relationship with God.
This generally entails proclaiming Christ as the alternative to spending
eternity in Hell. That is, one should desire God as a means to satisfy the selfish
desire to avoid hell. Manipulation of this type, even if well-intentioned,
unhelpfully supplants the moving of the Spirit, for which loving one's neighbor
is often the best catalyst.

Some people imagine that sin is a barrier to having a
relationship with God. One may have the hubris to believe that s/he has
committed the unpardonable sin or too little self-respect to believe that God
can even love her/him. I once had a parishioner who had been an ardent and
regular attendee at worship. Then he sinned in some way that he deemed so
horrific he could not even summon the courage to name it. He was convinced that
if he entered the nave, the roof would collapse and injure everyone present.
The good news of the gospel is that God loves us just as we are. Neither sin,
pride, narcissism, lack of ego strength, nor anything else diminishes God's
love for us.

Mindfulness training, such as that taught in centering
prayer and various forms of meditation, aims to improve attention to God.
Widespread western interest in the meditation practices of eastern religions
highlights our neglect of this essential element of the Christian tradition.
Worship becomes undeniably relevant when it helps attendees to connect with
God.

Yet real love entails more than a connection. Illustratively,
real love between two people is not hooking up for one night but denotes an
ongoing pattern of healthy mutuality. Inevitably, real love changes both of the
parties in a relationship.

Christian theologians have historically emphasized God's
immutability. Nevertheless, the Bible repeatedly describes God as having a new
or altered thought/intention. One possible explanation, advocated by some
process theologians, is that God's omniscience does not extend into the future.
If so, human thoughts, words, and actions may sometimes change God's thoughts
or intentions.

I know (NB: I am certain on this point, whereas less than
certain about God) that having a relationship with God changes a person. The
more I love God, the more deeply I want to enter into that relationship, the
more I want to become like God. This attraction stems from who God is rather
than any desire for personal gain or aggrandizement. When I connect with God, I
want to align my life in a pattern of ongoing healthy mutuality with God that
inevitably changes me.

Conceptualizing worship's purpose as (1) increasing the love
of God by helping people to connect and then to align themselves with God and
(2) increasing the love of neighbor has given me a theological framework for
understanding the what and how of worship.

Liturgy is not merely a laundry list of activities assembled
and sanctified by tradition or personal preference. Instead, good liturgy
invites people to gather, to seek intentionally to connect and to align their lives
with the one who is life itself, to enter more deeply into a community that
seeks to incarnate that life on earth, and then to go into the world to love
God and neighbor more fully.

Worship's two-fold purpose also contextually guides my
liturgical choices within the penumbra of that branch of God's family in which
I live and minister, the Episcopal Church: rites, forms, manual acts, music,
homiletic moves, etc.

Most importantly, I have what I believe is a credible and
comprehensible twenty-first century answer to the perennial question, "Why
should I worship?" My answer no longer depends upon guilt to motivate
attendance (God said to attend implies one should feel guilty when absent) nor idiosyncratic
personal preference (make the sign of the cross or kneel as seems helpful).
Worship is an opportunity to connect with the mystery that we name God, more
fully align one's life with the one who is life itself, and to grow in love for
one's neighbor.